Where did the Aryans come from?

Hindu nationalists trying to insist that the Indo-Europeans are from India are so funny it's pathetic. All the evidence shows that the PIEians were the Kurgan peole of SW Bronze Age Russia, and probably looked like any other group of Eastern Europeans (the mummies of the Tocharians in NW China confirm thier Eastern European appearance).

As you probably know, that "Varnashrama dharma" is non-existent for anyone who doesn't have an Hindu faith. Like the theory of evolution, plate techtonics or the mechanics of the Universe, we must look at this without religious prejudices. You can adopt the viewpoint of the "illustrated religious peson", who considers the letter of the holy books as largely metaphorical, relevant only for faith and moral issues but irrelevant for science - that's your decission, of course. But don't complain if others shun you because you let your beliefs rule your wisdom instead of vice versa.

1, 2 and 3 questions answered.

4. Dravidians. As far as we know, there's some solid claim to consider Elamite, spoken anciently in all southern Iran as a Dravidic (or Dravidic-related) language. We don't know for sure about the languge spoken in contemporary Indus Valley Civilization but it's a fair speculation that they also spoke a "Dravidic" language.

    I know of no other Dravids in other countries. The people West of them had other languages, possibly Caucasic tongues (Hatti, Hurrians), the isolate case of Sumerian and, of course, Semitic (Afroasian) tongues. Farther west, in Europe, the situation is badly known but there's no reason to believe in any Dravidic speakers. They spoke other pre-IE languages, such as Basque or Iberian, but we know close to nothing about this because they were almost fully replaced by Indo-European (Western "Aryan", if you wish) languages by historic times.

    One reason is that IEs invaded Eastern and Central Europe before (c. 3000-2400, forming the western branch) they marched over South and SW Asia (after 2000), so they had more time to complete their conquest. Another reason may be that Dravidics and other Southern and SW Asian peoples, being more advanced, could pose more resistence. But tropical geography of India may have played a role in hindering the advance of the IEs too, as the desertic nature of SW Asia may have also become sort of an "ecological barrier" (or at least a psychological one).

5. Can't fully answer but they more likely were in large parts of the arc that surrounds the Arabian Sea, from Elam (SW Iran) to at least Gujarat and the coast of Maharrastra, c. 2500 BCE. It is likely that less civilized Dravidians were also in less civilized areas of India but this is just my guess.

    It is important to realize that we must keep separated the Dravidian culture/language and any genealogical or "racial" issues. It's clear that linguistic borders don't necessarily correspond to genetic ones. These are two different animals. When I talk of "Dravidians" I talk of people speaking Dravidian languages. Many descendants of Dravidic-speakers may now spek something different, as Iranian of any Indo-Aryan language.

there're more than one definition for the word.
before I start, I would want to mention that in Indian Vedic texts, Arya and Aryan carries a spirtual meaning rather than racial or ethnical which was/is practiced in Iran. It would mean noble (in Veda), therfore Iran meaning: land of the nobles, but an Iranian expert would translate it as: Land of Aryans (aryan = a race). some believe it's a title for those who worshiped the sun God, Ar. (in Armenian, Ara as a name means the children of sun God). Some other, think that is related to the IE root of ar-, meaning 'to assemble'.

I am not sure, but I always thought that the word (Avestan ariia-) goes back to a proto-Iranian (or maybe even Indo-Iranian) *r- (syllabic 'r', as in Rgveda) which convays a basic idea of rise and movement, basically making the arii- to be "THE risers/movers, the ones who are exclusively part of a moving 'nation'".

Maju responded as: "As you probably know, that "Varnashrama dharma" is non-existent for anyone who doesn't have an Hindu faith. Like the theory of evolution, plate techtonics or the mechanics of the Universe, we must look at this without religious prejudices. You can adopt the viewpoint of the "illustrated religious peson", who considers the letter of the holy books as largely metaphorical, relevant only for faith and moral issues but irrelevant for science - that's your decission, of course. But don't complain if others shun you because you let your beliefs rule your wisdom instead of vice versa.

1, 2 and 3 questions answered".

In historical perspective, the Aryan-Dravidian issue has to be dealt with.

If "Aryans" and "Dravidians" were not there historically and archaeologically, then, there is no meaning in making them fighting each other socially or lingustically. This I have pointed out in my papers "THe Aryan Problem" and "The Dravidian Problem".

If Aryans with Vedas went on invading countries from "unknown place", then, same type of cultures should have been there. If not, then historians and scholars have to answer why the difference.

I hope what historians, scholars of all fields and of course, politicians do with "Aryans" and "Dravidians" in India. And of course, the historians and scholars from other countries too deal them accordingly without application of scientific methodology swearing in the name of science.

Skulls replaced colour,  color replaced blood, blood replaced chromosomes, now genes have come. But the issue remains.

I'm not sure of what you mean, Ramakrishna. What is clear is that the Indo-Aryan languages are related to Iranic ones in the first level and to all the Indo-European ones in the next one. That means that there must have been a single origin for all IE tongues. A single origin that split in two and then in successive branches. This origin have been very reasonably located in the area north of the Caspian Sea. Of course, we don't know where they were before.

But I will be always wary of associating languages with peoples. The same people can well start using a different language. That's pretty common.